Grandnephew of Netaji and Bengal BJP vice-president, Chandra Kumar Bose, wants the special team to scrutinise the declassified files and those still lying with the PMO to unravel the enduring mystery.

Seventy-two years after he disappeared, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s death continues to trigger controversy and political storms.(HT Photo)

Grandnephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Bengal BJP vice-president, Chandra Kumar Bose, has demanded a special investigative team to solve the mystery around Bose’s death once and for all.

“Only declassification of files means nothing. There has to be a special investigative team to scrutinise the declassified files along with intelligence files still lying with the PMO, KGB, MI5, MI6 and Japan’s intelligence wing,” Chandra Bose told HT on Saturday.

He has sought an appointment with prime mister Narendra Modi, who is presently travelling abroad, to press for this demand.

Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, too, does not believe that Netaji died in the 1945 disaster.
(HT Photo)

Bose has led a section of the family members who doubted the official theory that Netaji died in the air-crash in Taiwan on August 18, 1945 and demanded declassification of secret files with the Centre. Even after the files were published beginning January 23, 2016, Bose has kept up the demand that Prime Minister Modi start negotiations with the governments of Russia, England and Japan to get to the bottom of the mystery.

“Members of Bose family have learnt from various unconfirmed sources that files on Netaji lying with KGB are coded and needs to be decodified. Also, Japan has not yet made three Netaji files public. The special investigative team needs to go through all these documents to end the mystery for good,” he told HT.

The recent RTI disclosure from the central government, declaring that Netaji died in the plane crash, has earned severe criticism not only from the members of the Bose family, but also from the Bengal unit of BJP, which feared chief minister Mamata Banerjee would use it to her advantage against the Modi government.

German economist Anita Pfaff, the daughter of Subhas Chandra Bose, is convinced that her father died in 1945. She has also asked for scientific tests of his remains to end the controversy.
(HT Photo)

On Friday, within hours of Mamata Banerjee’s Facebook post criticising the Centre for ‘casually treating’ the question of Netaji’s death, the state unit of BJP issued a statement on Facebook, trashing the RTI reply and distancing the party from it.

The union government, too, has distanced itself from the reply. “The issue is not closed. Any new fact, if it comes up, will be examined by the government on merit and an appropriate decision will be taken,” a home ministry spokesperson said on Friday.